• Ref.: U-2200 • Cat.: 1

• Containment protocol: U-2200 is kept on a plinth in vault 4J in the Passive Containment Archive at UO Wyeleigh. Vault 4J, like all of those in the Passive Containment Archive, must be kept secure and receive bimonthly integrity inspections. U-2200 itself is entirely inanimate and requires no upkeep.

• Organization staff of rank L or higher are free to visit U-2200 outside of these inspections, provided that they first fill in form D-02 to acknowledge U-2200’s probable amnestic effect on them. Visitors must wear the supplied telepathic adapter to ensure that U-2200’s half of any conversation can be recorded.

• Description: U-2200 is a heavily worn, approximately egg-shaped 1.07-meter-tall monolith of tenasserite limestone inhabited by Gua, a non-corporeal entity that claims to be the prehistoric Johorean god of forgetting how to ride a bicycle.

• Aside from its ability to communicate telepathically, U-2200’s propensity to consume the part of a human’s memory where they remember how to ride a bicycle is its sole confirmed anomalous property. The process, henceforth “feeding,” is harmless, painless, and instantaneous; relearning the skill takes a typical Organization staff member 1 to 3 hours with guided instruction. U-2200 does not appear to require regular feeding and often (during ~70% of opportunities) chooses not to feed. It can feed on the same individual multiple times, with no apparent negative effects on the individual.

• Organization staff who have interacted with U-2200 describe it variously as “fun company,” “cheeky but basically harmless,” and “extremely irritating.” It is one of approximately 40 gods and godlike entities known by the Organization to exist. Of these 40, it is noted as the least powerful and the least dangerous.

• History: The stone is believed to have been carved during the late Neolithic, from the rock of Mount Kaing in what is now the Malaysian state of Johor. The British Museum acquired the stone as part of a large collection of cultural artifacts shipped from the Johor Sultanate in 1848. The stone was then kept in storage for almost sixty years. In 1907 an Organization researcher visited the British Museum archives for an unrelated task, passed close to the storage crate containing U-2200, and then found himself unaccountably unable to cycle home that evening. He identified the anomalous artifact that had caused the effect by smuggling his bicycle into the archives and riding it slowly down the aisles. Following this, the Organization established contact with Museum authorities and arranged for the acquisition of the stone. Telepathic contact with U-2200 was established soon afterward.

• Responsibility for storage and study of U-2200 was transferred to the Organization’s Antimemetics Division in 1982.

• U-2200 claims to have dwelled within the stone since its carving, more than 5,000 years ago. Exactly what U-2200 did between that time and the invention of the first actual bicycle in the 19th century is a matter of some debate. Consensus among Organization academics is that U-2200 did nothing, and probably did not exist in its present form. U-2200, however, claims that the bicycle has been invented dozens of times by cultures in all parts of the globe over the course of the past 5,000 years, only for U-2200 to engulf, consume, and negate all human knowledge not only of the riding of bicycles but of the mechanism of the bicycle, before lapsing back into dormancy. It calls this “the Bicyclecycle.” It also claims to have “other stones” in various parts of the world, including cycle trails near Manteigas, Portugal; Nagano, Japan; and the Mount Stromlo Observatory in the Australian Capital Territory, and to be able to freely visit these and observe or suppress cycling activities there.

• Following extensive research, the Organization has discovered no archeological or historical evidence to support U-2200’s version of events, nor any evidence to support either the existence of other stones or U-2200’s ability to leave its current stone. It is considered a highly unreliable source of information about the history of the bicycle, modern cycling culture, Johorean culture, prehistoric Malaysia, and most other topics.

• Interview log 276, ████-██-██:

[Marie Quinn enters the containment unit and sits heavily in a visitor’s chair. She says nothing for several seconds.]

U-2200: Ah, she has had a bad week.

Quinn: I don’t want to talk about it.

U-2200: You need to take a month off in Barbados starting today, or you will explode.

Quinn: [Sighs.] I can’t take a month off, Gua. We’ve had this conversation—

U-2200: Lies. Fly out this evening. There is a secret waterfall in the rainforest there, as tall as this building. I will direct you to it. Strip naked and jump over the falls. You will dwell in the plunge pool until I send further instructions. You will subsist on breadfruit.

Quinn: The work doesn’t stop. The world doesn’t stop spinning. People need me. I can’t spare a month. I’m lucky if I can find one day right now.

U-2200: Very well. When will that next day be?

Quinn: Theoretically, tomorrow.

U-2200: What psychedelic drugs do you have access to?

[Quinn glares at U-2200.]

U-2200: Go home and take them. No?

Quinn: I do not have access to any mind-altering substances. Other than. You know. The officially sanctioned ones. For work.

U-2200: Those are useless. Dispose of them. Do you want me to set you up?

Quinn: How the—It is absolutely impossible that you could “set me up.” How in the world would that work?

U-2200: I have someone. I’m cool.

Quinn: You “have someone”? On my staff? Who? Don’t answer that. Every conversation you have is recorded. It would be impossible for you to make a contact of that kind without it being caught. [Glances angrily at the CCTV camera.] I’m going to check those recordings. Gua, do not “set me up.” Do not tell one of my reports that I’m in need of whatever it is you were about to set me up with. [Closes eyes, clutches temple.] You can’t set me up. You’re winding me up again. I can’t believe I let you do this to me.

U-2200: Alcohol, then. Do you have alcohol?

Quinn: I don’t know. We have a cellar. There’s a refrigerator down there. And I know for a fact that there’s champagne in the refrigerator. Waiting for a special occasion.

U-2200: What special occasion?

Quinn:…I legitimately don’t remember.

U-2200: Go home tonight and drink that champagne. The whole bottle. Become incapable and unbalanced. Do this in my honor. The special occasion will be that the world has not fucking ended.

Quinn: I need to keep my head clear. I’m on call every minute of the year. We’re so short-staffed, there’s no one else. What if something breaks containment while I’m “elsewhere”? What if a…Cat. Epsilon Unknown decides to do the thing we Catted it Epsilon for?

U-2200: For you, I will take care of it.

Quinn: [Laughs briefly, then coughs for a long time.] Oh, God.

U-2200: You need to relax. The inside of your skull is a prison cell, and you need to get out of it.

Quinn: I can’t. I can’t do it.

U-2200: [Grunts, exasperated.] You come to me for advice, sayang, and reject all of it. Resign from the Organization! Raise goats!…Have you discussed this week’s events with your husband?

Quinn: He isn’t cleared. It’s for his own protection. He knows it. He knows he wouldn’t ever sleep again if I told him what there is.

U-2200: You must trust him. You can.

[Quinn says nothing.]

U-2200: Go home immediately and make love to him.

[Quinn considers this for a second, then stands up and exits the containment unit.]